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Last week, across the country, the Canadian Red Cross has been thanking its many generous volunteers for National Volunteer Week (April 10-16). We have been sharing messages of gratitude from the Canadian Red Cross and encouraged others to do the same. Check out some of the great photos shared with #ThankAVolunteer throughout the week.

For Ted Itani, volunteering has been a “marvelous opportunity to give back to society what society has given me over my lifetime...”  Ted was recently appointed to the Order of Canada in recognition of his dedication to humanitarian and peacekeeping work around the world. 

Here at the Red Cross, we can’t do what we do without volunteers! We get a lot of questions from people wondering how they can volunteer with the Red Cross as an international aid worker. Here's what we look for in an international aid worker. 

This week (April 10-16) is National Volunteer Week, so we’re honouring our incredible volunteers by sharing a few of their stories as well as heartfelt gratitude. At the Canadian Red Cross, we have around 20,000 volunteers who give their time and skills in helping others.

We’re so lucky Nicole Fassina is a new Red Cross recruit! Not only did she fly all the way from Tajikistan to take part in Canadian Red Cross training, but she can rap with the best of them, and is a Terry Fox Award winner. Recently, Nicole was one of 26 people, along with doctors, nurses, technicians, administrators and other professionals, who attended Canadian Red Cross IMPACT training in Ottawa. IMPACT stands for International Mobilization and Preparation for Action, and helps prepare people to work on a range of Red Cross international operations.

The end of this month marks the second anniversary of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. To honour all we have experienced in the past two years, we have pulled together a compilation of remarkable blogs from the Ebola outbreak.

As March Is Red Cross Month, we’re showcasing five of our many amazing volunteers who go above and beyond to help others. This is the second post to Get to Know 5 Red Cross Volunteers for Red Cross Month.

Chatting with Cheryl Wauthier reminded me of two terms that I learned from an Intro to Physics class: Potential Energy and Kinetic Energy. Essentially, potential energy is whatever energy a body has stored in itself when it is at rest. This energy is converted into kinetic energy when an outside force acts on the body and sets it into motion. When Cheryl joined the Red Cross, I like to think that all the potential energy she had in herself to do great things was released, became kinetic, and hasn’t stopped moving since.